Tastes like Cherries
by Scribbler
Summary: One Shot. Roxas meets Axel for the first time. Gender bender AU. Axel/Roxas.


**Disclaimer****:** I own nothing but the arrangement of the words on the page.

**A/N****: **I blame all the 'Princess Lea' jokes when trying to figure out the possible name for Axel's Other, and the _female_ character of Sora from Digimon, who was the first Sora I ever met, and came from _the _show that got me into writing fanfiction in the first place. My first time writing this couple and I went for an AU. Go figure.

**Feedback****: **Reviews appreciated! Seriously.

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_**Tastes like Cherries**_

© Scribbler, August 2008.

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The first time Roxas saw her, she was glowing like the embers of a fire in need of fuel, propped against the wall with arms folded over a chest that, while not ample, wasn't exactly tiny either. She was statuesque, striking, conspicuous as a parrot in a chicken factory and completely impossible to ignore.

Roxas ignored her. She didn't even pause. She had no mind for anything except the steady pace of one foot in front of another and the gaping holes in her ribcage and mind. When Xemnas stuck out an arm to block her way, she halted out of habit rather than actual curiosity.

"Axel."

The redhead flicked a sort-of salute. "Yo."

"Why are you here?"

"Loitering."

Xemnas frowned. Already, Roxas knew that Xemnas's frowns weren't to be taken lightly. She slid her eyes sideways, re-examining the person who would risk whatever lurked being the significant downward tilt of her eyebrows – this 'Nobody', as she'd been told was their proper title. The glut of information Xemnas had provided sat heavy, like a pound of wet bread still expanding in the pit of her stomach.

Axel stood easily, but closer inspection revealed the barely hidden hum of tension within her lanky frame. It was catalogued in angle of her one bent knee and the straightness of her spine. Far from being ignorant of pissing off Xemnas, Axel apparently knew what she was doing, and was watching to see what happened next, like lighting a single dry leaf next to a dry forest just to see if it would catch fire.

She glanced at Roxas and winked. Roxas stared back.

"And _why_, pray tell, are you loitering here instead of wherever you're supposed to be?"

"I thought I'd be the first to welcome the new addition to the Organisation."

Xemnas narrowed her eyes. She wasn't a beautiful woman. Her face was built to inspire respect instead of love – not that anybody in her company was _capable_ of more than respect.

Roxas had already accepted her emotionless state because she genuinely couldn't remember anything else. She didn't even have a 'Root', as Xemnas called it, which had obviously surprised her when she first found the skinny blonde girl and told her who – and _what_ – she was.

"Plus Marluxia wants to see you, Superior. Something about weird things in Naminé's latest drawings you might want to see." Axel shrugged. Her long red hair reached past and around her shoulders. "I can baby-sit the new Goldilocks while you go see the old one."

Xemnas narrowed her eyes again, looking between Axel and Roxas, but eventually nodded. "I shall see to the boy. Take our new Number Thirteen to the meeting room and wait there. I'll be along shortly with the others." With that, she waved a hand and stepped backwards into a portal of swirling darkness.

"Aren't you impressed?" Axel asked.

"Should I be?" Roxas's voice was flat. She couldn't remember how to make it anything otherwise, and wondered whether Axel had to work hard to put such inflection into her tone, and to remember to move her body in curves instead of economical straight lines.

"Most are when they first see the Corridors of Darkness. We can open them too, you know. Did you know that?"

"No."

Axel pushed herself off the wall, flipped her hair and canted her hips just _so_. It was all perfectly orchestrated. She beckoned for Roxas to follow, which she did.

"So, kid, what's your handle?"

"I am Number Thirteen."

"Eh-eh, wrong answer. What's your _name_?"

"… Roxas."

"So your Other was … Rosa? C'mon, I'm usually great at guessing these."

"I don't know."

"Huh?"

"I don't know my Other's name."

"Really?"

"I fail to see how confirming my answer multiple times will help you to understand it any more than you already do."

"Tou-chy. Doesn't anybody say it in your Root?"

Roxas paused, trying to recall her Other's final memories, the last evidence she'd lived – her Root. All she found was the same nothingness that filled her chest. "I don't have a Root."

That made Axel stop short. "You're kidding."

"What would that achieve?"

Axel seemed aghast, or at least doing a fair impression of it. She was vibrant and colourful, and so was subtle as a brick to the head – everything Roxas wasn't. It seemed she worked hard to stamp herself on the world as much as Roxas made no effort whatsoever. Cool indifference met stunned green eyes, before Axel shook her head and looked away.

"Man oh man, you're gonna find the transition hard. The rest of us rely on our memories to stop us going crazy – y'know, a sort of coping mechanism for having no hearts."

"I seem to be functioning perfectly well without any 'coping mechanism'. Perhaps you're all just weak."

"Watch yourself, new girl. You say things like that around here, you're likely to get yourself so flattened you'll have to look down to look up."

Roxas shrugged. Her back was narrower than Axel's, and her short blonde hair wafted in odd peaks and troughs, nowhere near her shoulders. The black coat Xemnas had given her felt too heavy, as though weighted down with more than just leather and metal studs.

Axel started off again, still shaking her head. The hem of her coat brushed against the floor and clung to the indent of her waist. "Man. No _Root_. That's weird."

"Why?"

"Well … because it is. I dunno why. It just is."

"Hm."

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

Roxas didn't even bother to answer this time.

"And I thought Saïx was a cold fish. Well, until she goes apeshit." Axel flicked her eyes at Roxas without breaking her stride – long and lanky, just like her, with no quarter given for Roxas's shorter legs. "You got a berserker side, kid?"

"Excuse me?"

"I guess we'll find out soon enough."

Roxas considered this, but it was a few minutes before she asked, dully, "What's your Root?"

"For me to know and you to find out, Goldilocks."

"That's the second time you've used that name. Who is Goldilocks?"

Axel _laughed_. It was a raucous noise, like a crow, or … no, more like a magpie; something bright that stole things and watched for weaknesses through gleaming eyes. Roxas got a sense that Axel pushed boundaries just to see how far they'd go, and what she could get out of it. "Oh, I can see you're going to be _fun_."

Roxas frowned, not liking the implication of these words. Not liking Axel much, either. It wasn't an emotion; more an observation that their acceptances of their situation were so dissimilar there was little chance they'd get along. Like their appearances – curves to bony angles, spiky red to silky blonde, stark white to sun-kissed tan – they didn't match; didn't _fit_.

"You don't talk much, do you? Usually newbies are all full of questions, or at least full of shit. Don't you want to know anything about this place? Not even its name?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Would it change anything for me to know where I am?"

"It might."

"Doubtful."

Finally, they came to a halt outside an unmarked door. Axel spun on her heel – higher than Roxas's, and sharper too. Could Axel fight in those? Roxas blinked, wondering where that thought had come from. Nobody had mentioned fighting, but she instinctively knew it was a part of her new life without knowing _how_ she knew.

"Hey, Goldilocks." Axel waved a hand in front of her face. "Woo. No zoning out, 'kay?" She rested her hand on Roxas's shoulder, casual, unthreatening – which made Roxas's reaction all the more incongruous.

She shook the hand away and took a step backwards, narrowing her eyes at Axel. "Don't."

Axel looked puzzle, but then a mischievous light crept into her eyes. "Why?"

"Just don't."

"But why not?"

"Because I said not to."

She tipped her head to one side. Then, with a speed Roxas hadn't anticipated, she darted her head forward and pressed her lips against Roxas's own. She had full lips, painted red as her hair and gleaming like her eyes, the complete opposite of Roxas's thin ones – though when Axel nipped her lower lip and pulled away it felt bigger than usual. Involuntarily, Roxas licked it, finding an oily residue that tasted vaguely like cherries and chemicals.

_Fake cherries. Like everything is fake now. Including you._

"Let's see if we can't make some new memories to fill the spaces in that little head of yours." Axel knocked her knuckles against Roxas's skull, then laughed and pushed open the door without holding it open for her.

Roxas touched her lower lip, which was indeed a little swollen. Her cheeks were flushed as well, changing the ambience of her face, though she didn't know from the inside how much softer it made her look. It was like she was faking a different, more vibrant version of herself.

Like chemicals made to taste like cherries.

Like Axel.

Roxas frowned and followed her in to meet the rest of the Organisation, wondering whether they were all the same as Axel. Somehow she doubted it.

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_**Fin.**_

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End file.
